No One Mourns the Wicked
by Connie Meg Lee
Summary: Abby is a young girl in Kansas whose best friend, Dorothy, has mysteriously disappeared after a ravaging twister. She's worried, sure . . . but the sudden appearance of a young green woman and her scarecrow friend give her other things to think about.
1. The Tree

The tree was an anomaly, the only slight blip in the continuous sea of corn. It stood by itself, lonely and wilting. Its few leaves swayed in the slight breeze. A few of them broke off and fluttered into the deep blue late-summer sky. Abby watched them fly away.

If she had been the discontented kind, the daydreaming type of person like her best friend, she would have wished herself to be one of those leaves, blowing off into the unknown. But Abby was perfectly satisfied with her life so far, and definitely not very imaginative. She simply watched the leaves go, faintly appreciating the dead beauty.

Abby was nestled between the tree's two main branches, her head resting against the smooth trunk. Her cat, Boss, was curled up in her lap, purring. He always purred when the dog wasn't around. Abby petted him absentmindedly, thinking about the dinner Ma would have when she got home.

The fact that Boss was purring instead of hissing or screaming was an improvement on the cat's part, but not on the situation of Abby's universe in general. The absence of the dog meant the absence of the dog's owner, who happened to be Abby's best friend.

She had been gone for three days now, and there was no sign of her anywhere, except where obvious. There were frantic, circling footprints near the Gails' front porch, but that was it.

The grownups had told Abby that she was probably all right, that she had just gotten lost in the chaos of the storm, that she was wandering around having a wonderful time among the endless rows of corn. And, they added, she was a feathery little girl who stepped lightly – it would be harder to spot _her _footprints.

Abby was unimaginative, but not stupid. If her friend had only gotten blown a bit by the twister and ended up in a cornfield, she could easily have found her way back. She had lived here in Kansas only six of her twelve years – half as long as Abby, but she was an explorer: she knew her way around twice as well as Abby did. Every cornfield was familiar to her, every acre, and every stalk within a two-mile radius. And though she _was _an explorer, she would know how much her aunt and uncle and friends worried about her, and made her way home as quickly as possible.

The grownups, however, apparently thought Abby was stupid. She had seen the fake, hopeful smiles on the grownups' faces melt away into expressions of deep, paralyzing fear the second they thought she turned around. Many times during the night she had peeked around her bedroom door to hear her parents trying (and failing) to whisper about strong winds, heavy flying objects, creeping men snatching little girls amid chaos and confusion. Though they would not tell her as much, they thought that now it was not a matter of finding her, but finding what was left of her.

And, Abby realized as she glanced up at the deceptively blue sky, she was not afraid. Whenever she thought about that friend with whom she had spent every waking moment of the past six years, she felt . . . nothing. She was not hopeful; she had a feeling that Sunday's, "I'll see you tomorrow, Abby – and maybe you should bring Boss. Auntie Em says I can't take Toto out as much because Mrs. Gulch is at the end of her annoyingly short rope. So maybe Boss can get some peace and quiet," would be the last words she would hear from Dorothy. She figured it simply hadn't sunk in yet, and it would when something was found of her.

Abby carefully slid her robust body down the smooth trunk of the tree, landing on the ground with a muffled _whump _on the edge her family's cornfield. Boss quickly followed her – maybe, he reasoned, if he wasn't with his master that horrible dog would come and get him.

She looked around, at the cornfield, at the sky, at the ground. All monotonous, all the same. Maybe, she thought, she doesn't know the land as well as I think she does, and she's still wandering around, and all we have to do is find her. Maybe she _is _having a wonderful time, discovering new things, living off raw corn and water from the irrigation.

Maybe.

She turned in the general direction called south and began to run for home, stopped, turned around, and sprinted back to the tree so that she could start again walking. Running as fast as she could towards her house implied that she had made some great discovery or figured out an important truth, and she didn't want to disappoint her mother by running only to outrun the feelings of fear and grief that were slowly but surely catching up to her.

She leaned against the tree, almost ready to start walking. Her hand caressed the smooth bark, back and forth, feeling every square inch of that anomalous plant. Her head was blank; she thought it was only a nervous movement. But somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, a tiny voice muttered to itself, _it's here, it's gotta be here somewhere – it's been here forever, it's gotta be here . . . _

Finally, Abby found it. Her fingers ran over a slight indentation in the wood, manmade. Slowly, painfully, she turned around and studied it.

She knew exactly what it was, because she had been there when it was made. She had watched Dorothy painstakingly carve it with the sharp point of a kitchen knife, occasionally turning it on its side to shave off extra bits of bark so that it would be _perfect. _

It was a rectangle, and inside the rectangle were letters whose shapes only an eight-year-old with a kitchen knife could carve: _DG LOVES HY. _

Dorothy had carved those words inside a square because she had lacked the skill to chisel a heart. It didn't matter, she said. Hiram Yost would not care that she could not carve a heart – he would love her for what was inside.

Hiram Yost, a former handyman, had married and left the state two years ago. Dorothy had disappeared. Abby knew Hiram would never see Dorothy again. And, with that thought, she knew _she _would never see Dorothy again. Nobody would. Nobody could.

It hit her like a screaming, yowling Boss being chased by a cuddly, fluffy Toto. All the pain and fear that had been building up inside her exploded, filling her mind, body, and soul. She shook uncontrollably, sinking down the trunk of the tree and landing in the grass. Her shirt caught somewhere in the middle, slightly riding up her back. Abby noticed this, and she thought, this will never happen to Dorothy, because Dorothy is dead.

And she cried, and Boss cried with her, although he did not know why he was crying. The dog was gone, he did not want to cry, but his master was crying, so he felt obligated to cry also.

Abby was crying so hard that she didn't notice the shadow that descended upon her until it spoke to her.

"I hope you're not crying because of me," it said sadly.


	2. The Scarecrow and the Corn

The scarecrow ran as fast as a scarecrow possibly can in a rotting cornfield infested with sharp-beaked birds.

"_Stay here_," he muttered, kicking a shriveled brown stalk out of his way. The crows noticed this, and honed in on him. "_Stay here and I'll go get our bearings. If anybody comes along, act . . . uh, natural._" He snorted, a dusty, hazy snort only accomplished by talking scarecrows. "Act natural," he repeated aloud, and the birds had another clue as to where he was. "What a load of –"

They descended upon him, attacking from all sides. The scarecrow had a sudden, small, and short-lasting epiphany, for a second knowing what it was like to be a dissident – like a scarecrow, attacked suddenly from all sides.

A particularly nasty-looking crow whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to make other life-forms' existences miserable dove, its beak aimed straight for the scarecrow's right eye. The scarecrow swatted it away, but it only took a second or so for it to rally again.

_Act natural, _she had told him, _and whatever you do, don't speak. I have a feeling that here, scarecrows aren't supposed to talk. _

He snorted again. He loved her, but he didn't have to do everything she said. It wasn't as if she returned the favor.

So he opened his mouth and screamed at the top of his lungs for help.

He could only get half of the word out, because an opportunistic bird saw the opening and _zing_ed towards it, making contact with such speed that it flew right through the scarecrow's head, its long beak visible though the back of his neck.

The scarecrow had braced himself for horrible, excruciating, fatal pain. He had bent his knees, expecting them to buckle, and he had tensed his muscles, with the assumption that he needed all of them to produce a scream pitiful enough to accompany a painful death.

The bird lodged in his throat, but the scarecrow felt nothing.

As he coughed in surprise, faint, beautiful words echoed in his head: _Let his flesh not be torn, let his blood leave no stain. If they beat him, let him feel no pain. _

_Thank you,_ he thought to his lover, and yanked the struggling crow out of his mouth. It shook stray bits of straw off its night-dark feathers as the scarecrow hurled it to the ground.

Having dispatched one of their comrades, the scarecrow expected the attack to intensify, but almost immediately every single one of the birds had taken flight, fearful of the same fate. The scarecrow collapsed into a stalk of corn, head in hands.

He took a moment to retreat inside himself. When he emerged, he examined his body. Bits of straw and fluff and bird feathers fell from his body like blood, but he felt nothing, no pain at all. The scarecrow used extra bits of his skin-like outer shell to cover up the rips as best he could. He ran a scratchy hand over the back of his neck. His fingers entered the hole the crow's beak had made, and he shuddered.

_If I weren't like I am . . . _

Once, he thought, he had been like those crows. Seeking out the dissidents, the troublemakers (one of them his own life's purpose, who was now out getting their bearings), he had sent out his soldiers to surround the hunted, so that they didn't stand a chance.

Who had he been to cause that sort of fear and hopelessness?

He lay among the corn, his eyes wide, staring at the sky. They had fallen off a cloud, it felt like, fallen miles and miles until they landed softly and unharmed on the corn below. He regretted it.

_We can't go back, _he'd told her. She had wanted to stay, to tell her friend, whom the scarecrow had once loved (and still did, in a way), but the scarecrow had insisted. It was all for the best, he thought now, but when had anybody ever done anything for the best? He had never done anything for the best, only what he thought was the best for himself. He was different now, but still . . . he would have to live a lot more years to balance out those he had lived in shallow frivolity.

Sitting up, he realized that she had been gone for awhile now. He couldn't stay here forever, he knew (oh, yes, he knew.)

It was quiet. The only noise was the soft rustling of the cornstalks, and his own shuffling about.

The scarecrow stood up, cupped his hands to his mouth, and called:

"Elphaba?"

HirHi


	3. The Understanding Farmer

A few minutes after she had left Fiyero, Elphaba had come across an old man, a farmer. He was old, wrinkly, crusty, and looked as if he had done everything life required him, and now the only think he had left to do was to check the corn for disease and pests.

The farmer wore thick lenses, and when he saw Elphaba approaching, he removed them, blew on them, rubbed them on his grubby shirt, and put them back on. Then he blinked, once, twice, three times. Then he raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and decided to ignore what was impossible to him.

"Excuse me?" Elphaba said. The farmer raised his head again and sighed.

"Yes?" he asked her.

"I was wondering . . . my, uh, companion and I have just arrived after a long journey. It's been, um, so long that, uh, we've forgotten where we were going. Can you tell me where we are?"

The farmer blinked at her. Elphaba was surprised. She had chosen her words as tactfully as possible, but she hadn't expected the old man to be so placid about it. There was no trembling, no shouts of horror, and no accusations of witchcraft or madness. Sure, the likes of her definitely were not seen every day, but the man seemed to accept that life sometimes threw strange things at him.

He said, "Where are you from?"

Elphaba thought a minute, and then said, "A place you haven't heard of."

"I haven't been anywhere," the farmer returned, "but I have heard of a lot of places. Maybe I've heard of yours."

Elphaba swallowed, and then replied, "I doubt it, mister. It's called Oz."

"Oh." The man seemed disappointed. "You've got me there." He cleared his throat, and said, "You're in the United States, miss."

"United . . ." Elphaba had never heard anything like it.

"States," the farmer finished. "I'm not the person to tell you about it; you'll have to ask the schoolteachers. But it is the United States, and the particular state you're in is Kansas."

Elphaba thought, where have I heard that name before? Then, it dawned on her: _that girl. With the dog. She was babbling on and on about Kansas. _

Wouldn't it be just her luck, she wondered, if that prissy little girl managed to get back home, only to encounter Elphaba? She might have to fake her own death _again_ . . .

She took a deep breath. "Sir," she said, "I'm not from here, but you might be the only one who understands that. I don't know how things work here, but I'm pretty sure my skin color is not normal. However," she continued, "despite that, I want to blend in as much as possible. Is there a way to do that?"

The man smiled, then snorted, then laughed out loud. It was a jolly guffaw that, even though it was directed at her, put Elphaba instantly at ease. "Miss," he answered, "What's your name?"

"Elphaba," she replied.

"Okay. First thing: your name cannot be Elphaba. Too silly."

_Too silly! _Elphaba almost protested. She had been named after the most revered saint in all of Oz, honored by nearly every faith. How dare he call it _silly . . .? _

"Call yourself Ellie," he continued. "There's not much else I can do for you, other than tell you that the nearest house is eastward."

"Thank you," Elphaba told him, surprised at how much she had trusted the first person she came across. I'll have to keep that in check, she thought. "And you never saw me, right?"

"I never saw you," the farmer grinned. "Good luck. Others might not so . . . understand."

Elphaba smiled, nodded, and turned to walk eastward. She went a couple paces and then stopped. She called to the farmer, "My companion . . . his name is Fiyero! What should I call him?"

The farmer sighed, and then grinned again. "Fee-yero? You'd best be calling him Bob."


	4. The Beginning of the Reunion

The scarecrow, whose birth name was Fiyero and who had spent his first twenty-something years as a human from the Vinkus, brushed the excess straw off his raggedy clothes and began to stumble through the ocean of corn. Occasionally a crow got too close for comfort, but all Fiyero had to do now was wave his arms and it would flap off to wherever crows go when they don't feel like being annoying.

Fiyero came from the Vinkus in Oz, which was mostly rocky (the only plants were prickly shrubberies that tended to trip people as they hurried to do something important), but he went to school in Shiz and afterwards he had spent a lot more time than he liked in Munchkinland, where the opposition was based. Munchkinland was the center of agriculture in Oz, and by the time Fiyero had fallen in love, out of love, in love again, and lastly into a scarecrow, he had a vague idea of which cornfield belonged to which Munchkin.

This, of course, was totally different.

None of the fields in Munchkinland, he observed, were this big. The largest had belonged to the local government (which was entirely Elphaba's sister, and, for an extremely short while, Elphaba herself), and it was only half an acre.

Unless the way people did things here were radically different from in Oz, he figured that he had not left the same cornfield in which he had landed. If he was correct, then this field must be acres and acres long. _All _of them must be acres and acres.

But, he noticed, the stalks of corn seemed almost ready to harvest, and they were only half as high as the stalks in Munchkinland. To generate the same amount of corn, they must have to spread it out over a great deal of land.

Now, Fiyero had "gone to school" in Shiz, but to him it had basically been a series of social hours. He had whiled away his months at the back of a classroom, feet up on the desk despite the pleas and warnings of the faceless professor, trying to catch the eye of either the prettiest girl in the class or the ugliest, depending on whether he wanted amusement or pleasure.

History had been the worst (or best, depending on how you looked at it). Instead of simply glancing at the day's chosen girl, he had shot spitballs and rubber bands at her, sneaking kisses while the nervous bleating goat's back was turned. He barely knew the meaning of the word history, even now.

But he did remember the day that horrible goat sent him to the front of the class like a naughty schoolboy (instead of the naughty college student title he thought he deserved), ordered to sit in a desk attached to a chair, so it was impossible to make visible his feet, and commanded to listen.

The goat-doctor had been talking about magic and agriculture, and how much each depended on the other.

"Corn is especia-a-ally important," he bleated. "When the art of ma-a-a-agic descended from the fairies to the lower life forms, the first use to which it was put wa-a-as the growth of corn. A-a-a-almost overnight, stalk heights doubled, and mass hunger – a-a-a-at least in Munchkinla-a-a-and – disappeared."

The corn here was _not _tall. And, if the people here were anything like the people in Oz, they would do anything to make things grow higher, wider, faster. Which meant: there was no sorcery here.

Did Elphaba know? They had been banking on it.

He had to find her.

"Elphaba!" he called.

He had been walking along a very faint, narrow trail through the endless corn, but it was getting him nowhere. For hours now, he had seen nothing but corn, sky, and the occasional wispy cloud that had nothing to do with anything and so disappeared as quickly as it came.

He pushed his way through the stalks of maize, and immediately his speed halved. He felt no pain, as Elphaba intended, but the discomfort was prominent as the stalks scratched open his shirt, his pants, his corn-husk skin. Occasionally he called out for Elphaba, for somebody, anybody. He was a man, he kept reminding himself, and men aren't inclined to express cowardice, even to only a few crows. But the monotony was driving him crazy.

He began talking to himself. "How can I hear?" he asked nobody and everybody. "My ears are made of I don't know what. I never paid attention in science – or history – or math – or anything, really – but I know there's something inside my ear that makes it hear-" he laughed manically at his unintentional rhyme, "-and if all that is made of plant material, if it's there at all, how can I hear myself talking? How can I hear the crows squawking? How can I . . ."

He took a deep breath, ready to burst into song, but a second later decided against it. It just didn't seem right here, didn't seem like something the people would do.

Not that he had seen any person other than Elphaba, who was too amazing to be a person . . .

At one point he sat, gave up. She can find me here, he reasoned. Just because sorcery isn't widespread doesn't mean she can't perform it herself. She can cast some hocus-pocus spell out of that book of hers and find me in a snap. All I have to do is sleep and wait.

Ten seconds later he was up again, running, knocking down cornstalks, frantically thinking, I have to find her! Where is she? Is she hurt? I HAVE TO FIND HER!

He shook his head as hard as he could; hoping that his many excess thoughts would fly out and go spinning away like the clouds. When the world (or at least, this one) came back into focus, he saw something other than corn. He blinked a few times, praying that it was what he thought it was, and not something wonderfully horrible indigenous to this universe.

It was only a tree.

It was a beautiful, lonely tree, the kind that Elphaba would like to sit under and think. Trees like that weren't found much in Oz – most trees were surrounded by other trees, in government-designated forests, only destroyable if the Wizard said okay.

He made his way towards it, and it became clearer. Its bark was smooth, not crusty, and the leaves looked as though they had been glued on as an afterthought. The trunk was one for about five feet, and then it branched off in two parts with a feeble attempt at a third, perfect for sitting, if you could climb it.

When he first saw it, he had thought it stood among the corn, but as he got closer he realized that the field ended, and the tree marked that ending. The tree wasn't alone, either.

He recognized Elphaba instantly, though her back was turned and no skin was visible. She was talking to somebody, gesturing wildly. Fiyero guessed that either the people here were extraordinarily small, or she was talking to a child. As he approached, every breath a sigh of relief, he heard part of the conversation. A piping little girl's voice, not dissimilar from the one whose owner had supposedly "killed" the "witch", asked, "Then . . . why is your skin green?" She hiccupped slightly, which Fiyero took to mean she had just finished crying.

Elphaba chuckled, made a small gesture to Fiyero from behind her back, and replied, "Same reason the scarecrow behind me is walking and will soon ask me what the heck I think I'm doing."


	5. The Meeting

Abby, being a young and relatively uneducated farm girl, had never heard the word _hallucination _before, and if she did, she might have thought it was a Latin swear word (which are, incidentally, the best kind). Therefore, when she glanced upward and realized that the woman whose shadow had caught her attention was green, she could not for the life of her think of a word or phrase to describe how she felt, other than, _I'm dreaming, I'm crazy. _

And as a result of being young and relatively uneducated, there was only room in her head for questions. Many of them, actually, were quite thoughtful and intelligent, and would give the woman a longed-for intellectual challenge. But, as these things often go, the first one she managed to vocalize was dense, vague, and really rather stupid-sounding.

"W-what?"

The woman sighed. "I said, 'I hope you're not crying because of me.'"

Abby blinked, and found that the next thing that came out of her mouth betrayed no fear, astonishment, or confusion. It was actually rather polite. Unfortunately, though, it was equally stupid-sounding. "Why would I be crying because of you?"

Even the cat looked disappointed.

The woman, whose shoulders were held confidently high, now slumped them. She rolled her eyes and shot Abby an expression of deepest contempt. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, and it soon closed again, and the woman settled for a narrow-eyed frown.

As we have established before, Abby was simple, but not stupid. "I mean . . ." she quickly backtracked, "I was already crying before you got here. It has nothing to do with you."

The woman nodded and her shoulders rose slightly, but she said nothing.

Wanting to avoid an uncomfortable silence with a green lady, Abby pressed on: "Who are you?"

It was a fairly straightforward question, and certainly not stupid-sounding. So Abby was surprised to see that the woman opened her mouth, closed it again, and began to think. After a second or so, an expression came over her face that Abby was not able to identify. Experience would later tell her that an expression like that meant that a person was thinking the equivalent of, "Oh, screw it."

"Elphaba," she said.

"EL-fa-ba?"

"You can call me Ellie."

Abby nodded, and than sat back against the tree. There were literally a million questions running through her head: _Where did you come from? Are you from here? Are you sick? Have you seen Dorothy?_

The one she chose to ask was, "Ellie . . . why are you green?"

The answer the woman – Elphaba – gave was very witty and had to do with the reason Abby didn't hear it. A man – a scarecrow, actually – had emerged from the cornfield, covered with various pieces of the corn plant and looking as if he had been pecked half to death. And, from her experience, scarecrows don't walk.

The scarecrow opened his mouth, as if to say something in response to the green woman's, but Abby beat him to it. Looking around Elphaba, she exclaimed, almost breathless, "Whoa! You're a . . . a scarecrow, and . . . you're . . . you're _walking! _How . . .?"

Elphaba threw back her head. Abby thought she might scream something to the heavens, or faint, but all she did was laugh. "Hang on," she said, "I'm green. This isn't paint or powder. This is my actual skin." She rubbed her wrist vigorously to prove it. "For all you know, he's wearing a costume. Why are you more amazed by him than you are by me?"

Abby, Boss, and the scarecrow all stared at her. Abby began to tell her matter-of-factly that she had lived on a farm all her life and could _tell _the difference between a scarecrow and a man, but was interrupted by a most uncharacteristic cackle from the scarecrow. "I guess I just have that charisma, Elphaba," he said.

Elphaba somehow frowned and smiled at the same time. "It's because you're _popular_," she accused. Abby watched this, extremely confused.

"As if that's a bad thing!" the scarecrow laughed.

"Hey!" Elphaba pointed a long finger at the scarecrow. "Wonder how GA-linda would react if she saw you all . . . _corny._"

Though she still had no idea what was going on, this comment made Abby chuckle. But the scarecrow was suddenly as serious as can be.

"_Glinda_," he replied, "is as good as dead to us. I just hope _one _of us can have enough courage to remember that."

He said it with such conviction that Abby expected Elphaba to sober up as well. But she only laughed harder. "Courage! Don't think I didn't hear you screaming for help a few minutes back. Really brave, Mister Guard Captain."

They glared at each other, eyes narrowed, arms folded.

Abby cleared her throat loudly. They looked at her, inquisitive. She said, "Well, that's all good, but it doesn't explain why YOU'RE green and you're a scarecrow and _walking._"

They glanced at each other, and then back at her. At the same time, the scarecrow said, "Magic," and Elphaba said, "Just because."

There was a long, incredibly awkward silence.

"Well?" Abby asked, standing up. Boss bounded off her lap and up the tree. "Which one?

The scarecrow started to speak, but Elphaba shushed him. "We are who we are because we are," she said wisely. "There's really no explaining it." For a second the scarecrow looked as if he might contradict, but ultimately nodded in agreement. "Is there a house nearby?"

"Yes," Abby said, suddenly exhausted. The whole exchange had taken five minutes. "Just out of sight. If you follow me, I guess we could . . . work something out."

"That'd be great," Elphaba said, and the odd trio began to walk. Gesturing towards the scarecrow, she said, "This is Bob, by the way."

The scarecrow stopped dead in his tracks.

"_What_?"


	6. The Mother

**Author's Note: It's a bit weak (especially the ending), but it's the best I can come up with at the moment. **

**I also do not own Wicked, the Wizard of Oz, or anything to do with the two except a movie poster. **

Boss, finally accepting the fact that Toto was not there, was very nice to Elphaba. Though Abby had called him to her several times, he always ended up circling her as she walked, his tail tickling the back of her knees.

And though the cat was not particularly cuddly or endearing in any way (much like his owner herself, Elphaba thought), its attention put her slightly at ease. Either I smell really good, she thought, or it likes me. As a confirmation of her suspicions, the cat purred.

After walking just a few steps, she could see that Abby was right – the house _was _only just out of sight. It was a rickety, one-story hovel of a farmhouse, much like the ones built in Munchkinland in the time of her sister Nessarose. Elphaba still felt a pang of guilt and grief whenever the name popped into her head. Whatever the world had thought of Nessa – whatever Elphaba herself thought of her – her demise had been cruel and heartless. And though Fiyero had told her many times that it wasn't her fault, it was obvious that it had been because of her, to lure her into a trap that ultimately resulted in her leaving her homeland . . .

She shook her head, as if to eject the painful thoughts, and decided that the only way to maintain her sanity (which she had only recently regained) was to focus on the moment and nothing else. This, she realized after clearing her head, would either greatly improve her skills of observation, or transform her into a mindless shell of a woman.

The girl, Abby, always stayed several feet in front of Elphaba and Fiyero. She would glance back every few seconds, her expression alternating between bewilderment and deep distrust. Every so often she beckoned towards Boss, but (as established before) he did not come.

About halfway between the tree and the house, the tense silence, broken only by the breeze and Boss's purr, became too much for Abby (Elphaba, who was used to these kinds of quiets, which were the sort that occurred whenever she entered a room, barely noticed it). "Where did you _come _from?" she asked incredulously.

Elphaba thought about telling the truth, just like she had with the geezer farmer, but decided that Abby would be less understanding. Still, what else was there to tell her? She thought for a few seconds, but the most plausible answer was quite feeble. Still, it might be worth a try. "The next town over," she replied, wincing.

Elphaba had expected Abby to give her an expression that said, _do I look stupid? _Instead, she vocalized it. "People _seem _to think," she said slowly, "that I am a bumbling idiot. I'd appreciate being told the truth once in awhile."

From the moment she had opened her mouth, Abby's voice had seemed flat and dead. Now, she suddenly got angry. "B_ut I guess you're adults, and adult's can't do anything but lie to me!"_ she shrieked. "_And-_"

Fiyero, who had been hanging on to Elphaba for support for the last couple of minutes, raised an arm. "Hold on!" he shouted over her. And Elphaba knew exactly what he would do.

He spoke again, in the way that always amazed her: shifting the blame from himself, but not bestowing it upon anybody or anything else. "Yeah. We lied, and we're sorry. But the thing is, if we had told you the truth, you would have had the exact same reaction. You just wouldn't believe us."

Abby stood, arms crossed, murderous-looking. "Okay. Tell me where you come from."

"A land," Fiyero told her, "called Oz."

Abby shrugged. "Never heard of it."

"You wouldn't have," Fiyero replied wisely.

The vein in Abby's forehead became visible again, but her voice remained calm. "Is that because I'm a stupid little farm girl?"

"No . . ." Fiyero held his palms out at his sides, the typical gesture of peace. "Nobody's heard of it." And with a sideways glance at Elphaba he finished, "We'll tell you about it later."

Abby didn't object. She just turned on her heel and continued to walk.

They reached the house in a few minutes. Elphaba's initial impression was right; it _was _rickety. The wood, though quite nicely painted, seemed old and warped, and the chimney looked as if it had been bent by a giant croquet club. There was a porch and it had a swing, but Elphaba wouldn't sit on that swing if someone paid her.

The woman sitting in it, however, didn't seem to have the same opinion. She didn't seem to notice that the ropes holding it up were dangerously close to snapping; she simply carried on with her sewing.

"MA!" Abby suddenly called, her voice changing entirely. Now it was rough, less intelligent. The woman looked up, and Elphaba saw that she had the same less-than-pretty face that Abby did.

The woman appraised them – it was impossible to pretend she was doing anything else. Her eyes narrowed as she set down her sewing, and her lips became thin and white.

"NEW FRIENDS, AB?" she called back.

"Yes, Ma," Abby answered as they reached the porch steps. Abby climbed them and sat down next to her mother; Elphaba and Fiyero stayed at the bottom, afraid to approach the woman. Fiyero reached over and put a nearly-limp arm around Elphaba's side.

The woman leaned forward, getting a better look at Abby's find. Abby said nothing for or against them, only: "They come from a place nobody's heard of." Then: "Oh, and their names are Elphaba and . . . Bob."

Fiyero shot Elphaba a look of deepest loathing, which almost instantly melted into a smile.

"Hmm," the mother said, stroking her chin. Then, Elphaba and Fiyero got a piece of the best luck they could ever hope to find:

"Well, Abby? I think I _did _hear the circus was in the area."


End file.
